After years of legal battle, finally Nokia and Qualcomm entered settlement that allows both companies to share their technologies. This is a great news for both companies and for consumers: we will see more handsets (phones) with US 3G now that Nokia can use the technology in the US market. Here is the announcement of the settlement:

Nokia and Qualcomm today announced that they have entered into a new agreement covering various standards including GSM, EDGE, CDMA, WCDMA, HSDPA, OFDM, WiMax, LTE and other technologies. The agreement will result in settlement of all litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its complaint to the European Commission.

Under the terms of the new 15 year agreement, Nokia has been granted a license under all Qualcomm's patents for use in Nokia's mobile devices and Nokia Siemens Networks infrastructure equipment. Further, Nokia has agreed not to use any of its patents directly against Qualcomm, enabling Qualcomm to integrate Nokia's technology into Qualcomm's chipsets. The financial structure of the settlement includes an up-front payment and on-going royalties payable to Qualcomm. Nokia has agreed to assign ownership of a number of patents to Qualcomm, including patents declared as essential to WCDMA, GSM and OFDMA. The specific terms are confidential.

"We believe that this agreement is positive for the industry, enabling the market to benefit from innovation and new technologies," said Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, CEO of Nokia Corporation. "The positive financial impact of this agreement is within Nokia's original expectations and fully reflects our leading intellectual property and market positions."

"I'm very pleased that we have come to this important agreement." said Paul Jacobs, CEO of Qualcomm. "The terms of the new license agreement, including the financial and other value provided to Qualcomm, reflect our strong intellectual property position across many current and future generation technologies. This agreement paves the way for enhanced opportunities between the companies in a number of areas."